Last updated on March 9th, 2022
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For those of you who are lucky enough to have a pond in your back garden, you know that there are plenty of options for plants that grow at the bottom of the pond, plants that grow along the perimeter, but now it’s important to find floating pond plants that add texture and variety to the surface. Below you will find seven of our must-have floating pond plants to incorporate in your garden pond:
1. Limnobium Spongia
With this plant, you can enjoy the shiny, green leaves offset by the small white flowers that offer yellow centres and three petals each. When grown in your pond it can be floating or rooted. This aquatic plant is best known for the leaves that take on a heart shape and float on the surface. When the loose rosettes of leaves spread across the surface they resemble a water lily.
2. Salvinia Natans
This floating fern is an annual aquatic fern that takes on the appearance of moss without the invasive hassle. It is rootless so it can form rapidly in your pond, creating an expanding foliage mat that covers the surface. The leaves are quite small and they fill with pouches of air to help them float.
3. Hydrocharis Morsus Ranae
A flowering plant, this freely floating pond plant is an annual pond plant that can reach 20cm in length. As the name implies, it does not need to be attached to any part of the pond bottom. It thrives in calmer waters, which makes it great for a pond. It looks somewhat like a small water lily with the round leaves and small, tri-petalled flowers of white offset by a yellow centre.
Check out our article with some of the best pond plants for using in small ponds here.
4. Pistia Stratiotes Rosette
This variety of aquatic plants has roots that hang below the surface and on top of the pond surface. It offers unique, soft leaves that are thick and form a rosette appearance, hence its name. The ribbed leaves take on light green and blue colours, adding wonderful variety to your pond. While it is not actually a head of lettuce or cabbage, it earns the nickname of water lettuce or water cabbage because of its rosette appearance. This variety does well in shade, especially during hotter seasons.
5. Pistia Stratiotes Variegata
This form of water lettuce is great for ponds because it produces beautiful foliage that adds texture and colour to your garden. This type, as the name suggests, is a variegated form of Pistia that typically reaches 10cm in size. The leaves open in groups, adding multiple layers of light or rich green floating on top of your pond surface. They can form mats across the surface if given enough sunlight and are fast-growing.
6. Pistia Stratiotes
This is a freely floating aquatic plant that you should add to your pond for the texture it provides. The roots are feathery and span upwards of 20cm. Leaves on the plant are fleshy and get arranged in tiny rosettes that span between 2cm and 15cm. Colour-wise they are grey and green with dense white hair.
7. Eichhornia crassipes Major
This freshwater aquatic plant varies in size and some mature plants can span a few centimetres while others get up to one metre. The plants produce spreading petioles and tend to stand in a dense, tall fashion. These plants produce shoots and crowns complete with ten leaves. As the shoot matures, older leaves die off giving an isolated shoot the closer to the pond bottom you go. Roots will develop based on the nutrient condition of the water and form a dense mat. Flowers are produced on each spike which takes on purple and mauve colours with a bright yellow centre. All of your flowers will open at the same time too.
If you have space, of course, you can integrate all of these, however, for those who are limited to space, just pick your favourite one or two floating pond plants to incorporate into your pond surface. Remember to find something that works with space and the water you have, and take something with the right amount of maintenance you are willing to invest.
We also recently made a list of some of the best deep water pond plants here.
